F&FF: The Candy Cane Problem

The rawhide candy canes were a mistake.

After all the extensive dog (and cat!) blogging I've done in the past week, I was hoping for some nice Christmas Day photos for Feline and Furball Friday, of Cayenne and Pepper interacting with decorations and presents. It didn't happen, partly because I was busy with other Christmas activities (imagine that!), but mostly because the dogs don't like the aluminum tree when the motors on the stand and color wheel are running.

Cayenne will sort of tolerate it, especially if there is food to be had, but even she was freaked out a little, especially after John and I opened a couple of Christmas crackers John found at Target. (This is not a food item, but a British party favor kind of thing, with a tiny amount of explosive that goes off when you pull open the cardboard tube. Inside is a paper crown and some little toy prize.)

Pepper didn't want to come into the den at all on Christmas Day, and spent much of the day on the bed with one of the rawhide candy canes. As I say, they were not a successful gift for the dogs. Neither one wanted to actually chew on the things, but they both were determined to keep track of them, lest the other dog take possession. John was convinced that one of the reasons Pepper stayed out of the den was that Cayenne had one of the candy canes on the floor near the entrance to the den, and was intimidating Pepper any time she approached. John eventually took away the candy cane, and it seemed to help - except that Cayenne was interested in the shelf where the candy cane was, and I worried about her jumping or climbing to get the useless thing back.

From the Picasa album Hermitage No-Kill Shelter

Be sure to check (sometimes)photoblog every Friday for links to the week's cat and dog photos. And just this once, here's a F&FF cat photo from me, left over from my trip to the Hermitage Cat Shelter last week, which was a highlight of my Christmas. (Uploading this and four other photos this morning also increases the number of photos in the slideshow in the previous Hermitage entry.) As you probably know, I'm very allergic to cats, but I managed to photograph a number of them with a wall of glass between me and the dander. Enjoy!

The Weekend Assignment entry will be up in a couple of hours. Probably.

Karen

Dogs and Other Distractions

I should have submitted this entry for Feline & Furball Friday, but I meant to do another one later in the week. Oh, well!

Pepper and Cayenne wait for the vet.

As millions of people over the past decade and a half have had occasion to remark, the Internet can easily suck up every minute of your spare time and more. That was true even in the old days of Usenet, Prodigy, CompuServe and then-nascent AOL, when the offerings consisted almost entirely of message boards and the beginnings of email. Since then, it's gotten much worse. One may eventually tire of writing three paragraphs a night about some tv show, to be read by the same people as last night's three paragraphs. But these days, there are many flavors of potentially addictive online activities. I personally can happily ignore most of them: gaming and cybersex, chat rooms and most kinds of downloads hold little attraction for me. But that still leaves blogging and photo sharing, Wikipedia and the toe-dipping edges of social networking and online political activism. Like everyone else, I can ignore the vast majority of the Internet because not all of it suits my particular interests, and because the firehose is simply too big for any single person to chug what it sprays. But that still leaves the trickle of stuff that is interesting enough to eat up an entire holiday weekend if I let it.

After my all-nighter with Picasa last night, I got two hours of sleep and then took the dogs to the vet, about which more below. Then I fussed with Picasa some more, went to bed for five hours, got dinner and went back online. Aside from the usual, I've written a blog post on the Obama website linking back here, made two of my Picasa collections of Outpost photos public as Picasa albums, and made a start on tagging hundreds (eventually thousands) of photos. Yeah, this is going to take a while. Even since starting this entry, I've been distracted for a couple hours, doing more tagging and deleting another 3 GB or more of dupe photos from the backup hard drive.

Restless dogs in motion

Can we leave now?

The veterinarian's appointment was just for Cayenne, so she could get the last of her booster shots. But Pepper was so excited when I put the leash on Cayenne, and so determined to get out the door, that it was easier to bring her along than to make her stay home.

This outing seemed much more fun back at the house.

In a way, though, it was just as well, because Pepper got more out of the trip than any of us bargained for. The vet wanted to put both dogs on heartworm prevention and pre-prevention testing, plus a flea and tick prevention formula. With the exam and the booster shot, this would all have come to over $200 for Cayenne alone. But by saying no to the flea and tick stuff ($96 per dog), I was able to get the heartworm thing done for both dogs. They didn't really examine Pepper, but they did measure her weight: 44 pounds, I think it was, something like ten pounds heavier than Cayenne.

Cayenne did not enjoy waiting around.

There was a lot of sitting around waiting at the vet's office, mostly in the exam room, resulting in a lot of doggie stress and fidgeting. But the vet was pleased with Cayenne's improved weight and skin, which had been flaky before. Pepper's was worse, and is also much better now.

And then tonight, Pepper made another contribution to the Monday Photo Shoot meme of destruction. But that's a photo for tomorrow night.

Karen

Dogs on the Grass, Look Out

The title of tonight's entry is from Thurber's commentary on Gertrude Stein's famous line, "Pigeons on the grass, alas." (I just found a fabulous mashup of the Thurber piece with Space Ghost, which aside from being funny gives you much of the text of the Thurber original.) Apparently Charlie Brown once sided with Thurber, remarking, "Beagles in the grass alas."

Pepper says hi.

I decree that after two text-intensive entries in a row, I'm entitled to a photo essay. I further declare that this is a one-day-early entry for Steven's Feline and Furball Friday, since my Friday morning entries are always the Weekend Assignment ones.

Object of curiosity, or just a buffer zone between dogs?

Besides, the dogs were being cute out in the yard this evening. Both were showing a certain amount of interest in the plants John's been bringing in as part of his Landscaping and Beautification Project (LaBP).

Where is the tastiest grass to be found?

Actually, Pepper is mostly interested in a) eating grass, and b) lying in the dirt. Tonight she ate a little bit of the grass between the slabs of John's new path to the back gate. John urged to to eat the rest of it, too.

Possible site for the next buried dog biscuit

Meanwhile, Tuffy checked out the new tangerine tree, which John put in the ground a few days ago.

Sniff! Sniff! Sniff!

Then she investigated some of the stuff that has yet to be transplanted, including runners John took from the firecracker bush out front.

I'm behind on reading everyone's Weekend Assignment entries, but I'll get to them early Thursday evening. I promise!

Karen

The Socialization of Pepper Blocher

Pepper tries to figure out my strange demands.

Tonight I'm primarily posting Pepper pictures, pursuant to Feline and Furball Friday. Today after work I took a stab at teaching her to come when called and to sit on command. With a few hints from Tuffy (no, really!) she didn't do that badly.

That's right: sit!

Trying to make her sit by gently pushing at her rump didn't work. She just ran away. But when she saw Tuffy sit and then get a dog biscuit, she followed her rival's example. The third time, she did it without a demonstration.

Of course, to reward Tuffy's behavior and preserve detente between the two dogs, I had to reward Tuffy too, with more dog biscuits than she actually wanted. y from John's new garden. I'm convinced Tuffy still sees that spot as the place to bury treats, and Pepper considers it a great place to dig them up - but only if she doesn't get caught.


Pepper is still spending most of her time on the couch, though, when she isn't checking up on me as I move from room to room. Se doesn't actually like to be crowded or surrounded or kissed; she just wants to be in a vicinity. I'm sure eventually she will welcome the attention and show us actual affection, but she's not there yet.

Tomorrow: a surprise. Probably.

Covered

Perhaps this entry would benefit from a few subject headers, thus:

Tracking Robins

I've spent most of tonight on that database I've mentioned a few times already, tracking who all has participated in the Round Robin Photo Challenges and when, and which blog is the most current or most preferred one for each Robin. Tonight I basically covered all of 2007, compiling a checklist for each of the 26ish Challenges including all new participants and all updates to the blogs being used. From that I got all new Robins from 2007 added to my master list in chronological order. Unless a mistake turned up as I move into 2008, out all-time list of Robins stands at 110 people! Maybe tomorrow I'll compile amusing stats on the most common first names on the list (#1 is the name "Robin," I think), but for tonight I think I've done enough.

Scalzi skimming

The other thing I've done tonight is browse through more of John Scalzi's The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, and read a few pages of The Sagan Diary. The Rough Guide has its faults - typos and the occasional omission - but it's generally knowledgeable and entertaining, which should surprise no one. I'm especially pleased that Scalzi has put nearly all of my favorites on his list of essential canon, and praised such films as The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension and Lilo & Stitch.

The Sagan Diary, a novelette that goes with the OMW series, starts with a fun premise: two governmental agencies are having a minor tussle over access to information downloaded from Sagan's BrainPal. The novelette itself basically consists of Sagan's private reminiscences and musings as she prepares to leave the military for a new life (literally) with John Perry. The one government person complains that the Sagan diary download is more love story than military intel.

I'm not deep enough into the book yet to have a clear idea what the diary is and what it's supposed to be. From my perspective it's off to a bit of a slow start, with Sagan thinking largely in metaphor and poetic imagery. I hope the rest of it isn't that.

Countdown to Who

Next weekend, meanwhile, is the end of Torchwood Series 2 and the premiere of Doctor Who Series 4 in the UK. The BBC is starting to ramp up its publicity machine with trailers and teasers, clips and screenings. It all looks great, and as intrigued as I've been with set reports and sly hints from the show's producers, I want to see it now! On the other hand, the episodes I'm most curious about all take place at the end of the season. Best not rush it then!

Of Dogs and Couch Covers

The new couch cover is in our midcentury modern den

The other news du jour is that the couch cover John ordered about a week ago arrived today. Believe it or not, this leopard print was the best match for the decor of the Den of the Museum of the Weird. It's thin and rough and not at all comfortable to sit on, but it's staying on much better than the mismatched throws we had on it before. It looks better, too.

Seems comfortable enough for Pepper.

A meditative lick.

Sometimes she uses the pillow, but not always.

Meanwhile, Tuffy and Pepper struggle to establish who is top dog. They've both barked at each other in moments of stress and jealousy over food or the attention of humans, and both had a tendency to guard the food and water dishes. Whichever bowl we designate as being for Dog A, you can be sure Dog B will take it over at the first opportunity, while A eats B's food from the other dish. The good news is that a) Tuffy is less inclined to run away than before, and b) the competition over food seems to have improved her appetite.

The birds are singing, and I'm going to bed now. Good morning!

The dogs want.

Update: I get overwhelmed by the number of weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc. photo memes that are out there now, some of which people have been kind enough to personally invite me to participate in. But Steven's got one that's very simple in concept. The name of the meme, Feline Friday, tells you why I've never participated. But now he's expanded it, as Feline and Furball Friday, to include dogs. I don't think of Tuffy and Pepper as furballs, exactly, but they're certainly furry, and as it happens I posted all these shots of Pepper on Friday night. So hello, Steven, belatedly. Can Pepper play with Pickle?

Karen